MERKEL: It's wrong to completely decouple from China

According to the British Reuters news agency reported on November 17, German left-behind Cabinet Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a recent interview with the agency that a complete decoupling from China is wrong, which will cause harm to Germany and Europe.

China became Germany's largest trading partner in 2016, Merkel's China policy "reshaped" Germany and Europe's stance on China, and the rapid development of China's economy also promoted the growth of the German economy during Merkel's tenure. But some opponents claim that Merkel made Germany "too dependent on China" and failed to "criticize" China on so-called "human rights issues."

Merkel responded that Germany's initial approach to some partnerships may have been "too naïve," but now both Germany and the EU should continue to work with China to learn from each other's experiences. "In my opinion, complete 'decoupling' is not the right thing to do, it will harm our interests."

She also said That Germany is consulting with China on "intellectual property and patent protection," "which involves both the interests of Chinese students in Germany and The German companies operating in China." ”

German Remaining Chancellor Angela Merkel is pictured from the surging image

In Merkel's view, if Western countries still want to actively participate in the formulation of new technology standards in the future, they must maintain the pace of innovation to fully exert their influence, but Europe has clearly lagged behind China and the United States in this regard. "At the moment, Europe is not doing a good job in areas such as quantum computers and artificial intelligence, and China and the United States are much stronger in many ways."

In addition, Merkel also talked about her views on the participation of Chinese companies such as Huawei in Germany's infrastructure construction. She said that Germany needs to protect critical infrastructure, and Germany's new information technology security law also sets a very high "threshold" for network equipment suppliers, but this does not mean that specific companies must be directly excluded.

"I think it's important that individual companies shouldn't be excluded from the outset." Merkel said, "We need an open system that evaluates every participant by the same criteria." ”

With the end of her 16-year term as chancellor, Merkel also looked back more about her ruling career in interviews with foreign media, and repeatedly talked to foreign media about the importance of building relations with China. On October 23, in a "farewell interview" with Süddeutsche Zeitung, she explained why she visited China almost every year.

At that time, Merkel cited the changes in the GDP of China and Germany as an example, saying, "When I first became chancellor, China's GDP was 2.3 trillion US dollars, which is still slightly lower than that of Germany (2.8 trillion US dollars). Now, China's GDP has reached $14.7 trillion, while our GDP is $3.8 trillion. ”

Germany, while a relatively wealthy country, is becoming less and less influential in the world, she said, and "we have to build relationships in a strategically smart way." We were once very important as Europe's largest economy, and now we must continue to work to maintain our importance. ”

With Merkel abandoning her bid for re-election in the German Bundestag election in September this year, her 16-year reign will come to an end after the formation of a new German government. The Spedral, Greens and Liberal Democrats are currently negotiating the formation of a coalition government, and German media expect a new German government to come to power in early December.

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